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Sunday, December 22, 2013

Washington Capitals: That Was The Week That Was -- Week 12

It was a heavy schedule for the Washington Capitals in Week
12.At the end of it, one could find the
good, the bad, and the ugly in it.That’s
why we’re here, so let’s get to it.

Record: 2-1-1

It was the eighth winning week for the Caps so far this
season, their second in a row.It also
was “Metro Rivalry Week.”The Caps had a
home-and home set with the Philadelphia Flyers and games against the Carolina
Hurricanes and New Jersey Devils.When
the week started the Caps had a two-point lead on third-place Carolina, a
five-point lead on fifth-place New Jersey, and a six-point lead on the sixth-place
Flyers.At week’s end, the Caps’ lead
expanded to four points over Carolina, while they held their own over the
Devils and Flyers, maintaining the margins over those teams with which they
started the week.When you are the lead
dog among those four teams, not losing ground has to be considered a good
thing.Perhaps, however, it could have
been better.

Offense: 3.50/game (season: 2.97 / rank: 7th)

Ten Capitals shared in the 14 goals scored for the
week.Alex Ovechkin led the way with
four goals, one in each of the four games. He is into round numbers lately –
four in four games for the week, ten in his last ten games.He became the sixth player in the post-1967
expansion era to record 30 or more goals in each of his first nine seasons.

Marcus Johansson had a pair of goals this week, the only
other Cap to record a multi-goal week.It
brought him out of a drought in which he had only one goal in 16 games dating
back to his scoring in consecutive games back on November 5-7.When he was held off the score sheet against
New Jersey to end the week, it broke a three-game streak of points for the week
and a five-game points streak overall.

Speaking of overall, 13 different Caps recorded points for
the week.Nicklas Backstrom topped the
list with seven point, all on helpers.His four assist game against Carolina on Friday was his ninth career
four-assist game, the most in the league since he came into the NHL in the
2007-2008 season.In fact, he has as
many as the second and third place players (Ryan Getzlaf, Sidney Crosby)
combined.

Defense: 4.00/game (season: 2.94 / rank:24th)

Blech!The Caps
allowed nine goals over two games to the 22nd ranked scoring offense
in the league, five goals to the 23rd ranked offense.There is no way to put a prom dress on that
pig and make it prom queen.The Caps
allowed 141 shots on goal – 35.3 per game.True, that is precisely the Caps’ season average of shots allowed per
game, but that is the second worst average in the league.It caught up with them this week.

The possession numbers?Yeesh.For the week the Caps were
sub-40 percent in both Corsi-for (37.8 percent) and Fenwick-for (39.9 percent) percentage
in 5-on-5 close score situations.They
were sub-40 percent (38.0 percent) in Corsi-for and barely cracked the
40-percent level (43.2) in Fenwick-for in all 5-on-5 situations.Graphically, the trend (depicted as a rolling
10-game progression for Fenwick-for, 5-on-5 close situations) is, from a hockey
perspective, alarming.

The last few games of that chart look disturbingly like the share price for Lehman
Brothers leading up to their bankruptcy in 2008…

Let’s hope things turn around for the Caps more than they
did so for Lehman.

A tale of two goalies.One tale describes that of Philipp Grubauer, who was called upon twice
this week. He won both games, stopping 63 of 69 shots in the process (.913 save
percentage).It was a good, if not
extraordinary performance overall.

Then there was Braden Holtby.Two appearances, two losses (one in
overtime), ten goals allowed on 72 shots (a .861 save percentage). It is part
of a longer struggle Holtby has had recently.In his last five appearances he is 1-2-1, 4.92, .863.Holtby’s problem, at least this week, was
later-game collapses.In his two games
he stopped 16 of 17 first period shots (.941 save percentage), but allowed four
goals on 26 shots in the second periods of those games (.846) and four goals on
27 shots (.852) in the third periods of those games.

It was not a good week overall for the goaltenders, Holtby
in particular, but then again they had a heavy workload, too.They faced an average of 34.8 shots per 60
minutes of work for the week, part of a longer trend in which the Caps have
yielded a lot of shots.The word for
this week might be “regression.”

The Caps are making teams pay, and pay dearly for stepping
outside the rule book.This week it was power
play goals in three of the four games, five power play goals overall on 13
chances.The Caps recorded those five
goals on 21 shots in 17:14 of power play time.Four different players had power play goals for the Caps this week,
Marcus Johansson being the only one to hit the twine twice.The one thing each power play goal had in
common was that Nicklas Backstrom recorded an assist.Five of Backstrom’s seven assists for the
week came on the man advantage.Backstrom finished the week with 21 power play assists for the year, a
five assist lead over Evgeni Malkin for the league lead.

It seems so long ago now, all those penalties killed off in
a row back in October and early November.In the here and now, the Caps’ penalty kill stinks on toast.First, there were the opportunities.The Caps allowed opponents four or more power
play opportunities in three of the four games for the week.When the penalty kill is struggling, you don’t
want the penalty killers on the ice.Then there were the shots.Opponents recorded 30 shots on goal in 26:03 of power play time.It seems almost inevitable, absent some
herculean effort from the goaltenders, that the penalty kill would continue to
struggle.

Despite the minus-2 week at even strength the Caps did not
sink lower in the league standings in 5-on-5 goals for/goals against
ratio.That’s the good part.Seven of the even-strength goals against
either tied the game or gave opponents a lead.Washington was out-shot at even strength by a 107-88 margin for the week.The Caps out-shot their opponents at even
strength in three of the first four periods in regulation for the week and
failed to out-shoot opponents at even strength in any period thereafter for the
week.It is not as if these are isolated
circumstances.The Caps have been
struggling at even strength for most of the season.Only Ottawa and Toronto allow more shots perminute at 5-on-5 than do the Caps.Only
five teams allow more even strength goals per minute of ice time than do the
Caps.This is not a good even strength team.

It was a uniformly good week in the circle for the
Caps.The Caps won all three zones – 55.2
in the offensive zone for the week, 53.7 percent in the defensive zone, 53.3
percent in the neutral zone.Nicklas
Backstrom was a good reflection of the consistency, going 55.0 percent in the
offensive zone (11-for-20), 55.0 percent in the defensive zone (11-for-20), and
52.2 percent in the neutral zone (12-for-23).Martin Erat carried the biggest load in the defensive zone, taking 25
draws for the week and winning 14 of them (56.0 percent).Jay Beagle was right there, though, winning
nine of 15 defensive zone draws (60.0 percent).No Capital taking more than ten draws this week finished below 50
percent for the week.

Goals For/Against by Period:

The second period was once more good to the Caps, but again,
it might have been better.Eight of the
14 goals for the week scored by Washington came in the second period, but they
allowed six to opponents.And, the Caps
allowed another six goals in the third periods of games.It made for a difficult week, especially
since the Caps still cannot seem to get off to good starts on a consistent
basis.They had only one first period
goal for the week.Only five teams have
fewer goals scored in the first period this season than the Caps.They are a minus-11 in goals scored for and
against in the first periods of games this season.

In the end…

A 2-1-1 record is not bad.It shows a certain consistency of results, the Caps having recorded winning
weeks in three of the last four weeks (the other being a .500 week) and eight
winning weeks in the last ten.But
scratch the surface, and the question remains, is this a team playing to its
record?If you answer that question in
the negative, then the question becomes one of whether there is a correction – and
perhaps a big one – to come that aligns the Caps’ record more cleanly with
their underlying performance numbers.

The Caps are not playing well at 5-on-5, their penalty
killing has been fair to awful, they allow too many shots, their possession
numbers are weak, they are being carried more or less by Alex Ovechkin and
Nicklas Backstrom.Yet, they win.For now.

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The Washington Capitals enter the 2016-2017 as one of 12 franchises in the NHL never to win a Stanley Cup. Of that group, only the St. Louis Blues (48 seasons), Buffalo Sabres (45 seasons), and Vancouver Canucks (45 seasons) have gone longer never having won a Cup than the Capitals (41 seasons). Six teams came into the league after the Capitals entered the league in 1974-1975 and have won Stanley Cups: Colorado Rockies/New Jersey Devils (1976-1977), Edmonton Oilers (1979-1980), Quebec Nordiques/Colorado Avalanche (1979-1980), Hartford Whalers/Carolina Hurricanes (1979-1980), Tampa Bay Lightning (1992-1993), and the Anaheim Ducks (1993-1994).

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